DNS Oversimplified

... or, even a rocket scientist can understand DNS

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First, on a nearly unrelated note, if you're looking for phone number lookups by area code and exchange (for example, you have Caller-ID with the phone number but no name), you can use WhereCall.com's area code and exchange lookup.

The goal of this page is to help you make sure that your DNS is set up properly, and help you many common errors that may exist. It will also help you if you are setting up DNS for the first time -- there is a lot of valuable information in here, and after you are done, you can walk through this step-by-step to make sure you did everything properly. Just go through the following steps in order:



 
  • Step 1: WHOIS: Making sure you exist at the top of the food chain.
  • Step 2: Your Name Servers: 1 primary, at least 1 secondary, identical to what WHOIS reports.
  • Step 3: SOA Record: The beginning (and end) of your DNS entry.
  • Step 4: A Records: Turning domain names into IP addresses.
  • Step 5: MX Records: Making sure mail gets delivered to you.
  • Step 6: CNAME: Pointing to someone else's servers.
 


That should cover most common errors. For a more comprehensive way to check your DNS, you may want to check out www.DNSstuff.com and www.DNSreport.com. For IPv6 tools, try www.IPv6tools.com.

(C) Copyright 2000-2008 R. Scott Perry - Last site change: 22 Oct 2008